SOCPSY 2YY3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Bourgeoisie, John Dewey, Verstehen

• School: McMaster University
• Department: Social Psychology
• Course: SOCPSY 2YY3
• Professor: Kathleen Steeves

Document Summary

How people negotiate the meaning of social life through their interactions with other people. Focus on how interactions come to shape society and individuals at the level of human agency. Meanings are not stable or inherent in any object. There are a variety of different meanings that can be placed on various objects. Seemingly familiar objects to you may be used differently and called differently by people in other cultures and societies. Time, place, and space is important to symbolic interactionists: social structure & personality. Focus on how society or social structure influence people or individuals. (flip of symbolic interactionism). How does society and social processes act down on individuals and shape their beliefs and behaviours and positions in society. Individual has less agency in this theory: group processes alone does not act the same way as they would in a group. A group is a living organism on their own.